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BURNING OF HINDU WIDOWS.
299
rials for his “Essay on the Duties of a faithful Widow", published in the fourth volume of the Asiatic Researches, we find the author citing a verse' from the Rigveda and a passage from the Brahma Purana, in order to show that the Veda authorizes Sahamarana. You suppose this verse to be an incorrect reading of the seventh Rich above alluded to, and support your reasoning by the Commentary of Sayana and the directions of Aswalayana.
Now, the shortest way in which our pandits would dispute this opinion, would be to assert that for anght that we moderns know, Raghunandana's citation may be altogether a different verse from the seventh Rich, and may be found somewhere, in any of the Sákhás of the Rigveda; inasmuch as the same verse, with slight variations of reading, and hence with different import and application, often occurs in the different Vedas, in various Sákhás of the same Veda, and sometimes in different places of the same Sákhá of a Veda. The objection to the use of the epithets "Avidhavá” and “Sapatní”, whereby you suppose the reason for burning to be wanting, can be easily answered by supposing the Satí (whose soul is, as it
ITAT 777tfayat: FORTHOT #fuut afati 79स्वरोऽनमीवाः सुरत्ना आरोहन्तु जनयो योनिमग्रे ॥
ऋग्वेदवादात्साध्वी स्त्री न भवेदात्मघातिनी ॥* आश्वलायणी, सांख्यायनी, शाकला, वाप्कला, माण्डुकेयी. * "The loyal wife (who burns herself) shall not be deemed a suicide."
